trinidad sorrel

Living in Houston, I often hear folks who grew up in more northern areas complain about the lack of snow around this time of year. “Christmas is supposed to be white!” they grouse. “I can’t get with these highs-in-the-70s days.”

I could not disagree more.

Growing up in Trinidad, Christmas was tropical. It meant days at the beach. It meant parang music. it meant feasting on traditional Trini dishes like macaroni pie, sweet bread, corn soup, and so much more. And at my grandmother’s house, it meant a nice cold glass of sorrel.

Because I’m married to a Brit and we have an American daughter, Alex has only experienced a true Trinidadian Christmas twice, and back then she was still a toddler. So one of the ways that I try to bring a little Trini into our own celebration is through food. I make macaroni pie. I make sweet bread. I make corn soup and roast bake. But one thing I hadn’t tried to make was sorrel. Until this past weekend.

Sorrel is a really refreshing beverage made from the hibiscus sabdariffa or roselle flower (not to be confused with the ornamental hibiscus that you see growing in most tropical gardens). Since it’s made from a flower, it’s technically more of a tea, I suppose, but it tastes something like cranberry juice, with an even richer red colour. When I was a kid, I used to “clean” the roselles with my grandmother: it was a laborious process, and not entirely pleasant, since the fresh roselles have small hairs on them that often irritated my hands. For that reason, I’d always assumed that making sorrel was an ordeal. And then I discovered that you can get dried, cleaned roselles from Amazon.

This. Changes. Everything.

So I ordered some (who am I kidding, I ordered a ton), and on Friday night, I found a few recipes, tweaked them a bit (because that’s what I do), and made some. And man, talk about a flavour bringing back memories? Shoooooooot ….

So I thought I’d share the recipe here for posterity. If you live in a place where it’s warm in December, think of it as your new, refreshing holiday beverage. (And pro tip: it does really well with a shot of rum or vodka too, for a seasonal cocktail.)

Trinidad Sorrel

Ingredients:

4-5 oz. of dried roselles (about 1-1/2 of these packets, and the best part is that the packets are resealable!)
12 cups of water
2 cinnamon sticks
10 cloves
2 cups of light brown sugar

instructions:

Place water, cinnamon sticks, and cloves in a large pot and bring to a rolling boil. Then remove from heat.
Stir in the sugar and the roselles until well-mixed and the sugar has dissolved. Cover and let cool and steep for about 2-1/2 to 3 hours.
Strain the mixture, removing the cinnamon, cloves and roselle petals. I actually double-strained it to make sure that only the liquid was left, and there weren’t any errant floating sticks and twigs. Because nobody want that.
Serve over ice! When I drink mine, I dilute it a little bit with water — but my mom likes it even stronger, so she would steep the roselles even longer. Modify to taste. And incidentally, if you buy pretty glass bottles, this makes a lovely Christmas gift. (I found these bottles on Amazon, in case you don’t have any saved bottles in your pantry.)

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